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Interview with Scarlett Savage

Posted by
Jo Linsdell
at
5:58 PM

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

I learned how to read when I was four years old; by age five, I’d
read every picture book I could get my hands on. One snowy Saturday morning a
couple of weeks before Christmas in Maine (where I grew up), we lost power. My
sisters were at my grandparents house, so I was trapped at home alone with no
one to play with or torture… AND no cartoons!! Before I could have a complete
meltdown, my Daddy told me he’d just read a good book and he thought I’d enjoy
it. As my little chest swelled with pride, he went and raided the Christmas
present stash and brought me “Little House in the Big Woods”. I’d never read a
book without pictures on my own before…but after the first few pages, I
realized something. There didn’t need
to be pictures, because the words made pictures in your MIND. Big, splashy,
amazing, sensation-drenched pictures.

It took me about a week to get through it, and the minute I
did—being the kind of kid I was—I thought to myself, “I can do that, too!”

As a side-note, that Christmas when I was five, as impoverished as
we were, he scraped up enough money to go out and buy me a briefcase, several
notebooks, two boxes of pens—one red, one black—a highlighter, folders, and a
little stamper with my name on it. That Christmas morning, I announced that I
was going to be a writer to anyone who would listen—and I never swayed in that
desire from that moment till the moment I won my first award in school, then
professionally, and began having my work produced all over the country. I lost
my Daddy when I was eight, but I think of him every time I sit down at the
typewriter.

What genre do you write in, and why?

That’s the funny thing with me; I have
several genres. (More than one agent of mine in the past has had great angina
over this fact for reasons well beyond my understanding). I’ve written several
books that would be qualified as “Chick Lit” (my novel, “Thinking With Your
Ring Finger”, based on a pilot that I wrote about my close friendship with my
ex-husband’s first wife, is definitely “Chick Lit”, as well as the novelization
of my award-winning off-Broadway play “She F*&king Hates Me: A Love Story”;
I’m also working on the novelization of another “chick lit” play of mine,
called “Naked Pictures of My Ex-Husbands”). But several of my works are much
darker—“Narcotic Nation” is what I would call adventure fiction, as is my novel
“The Madman’s Clay”. “Not This Girl, Not This Day” would be classified as young
adult fiction—it’s based on a play I’m hoping to open soon in LA, about what
rape does to the men in the lives of a rape survivor, which has been a
strangely silent POV (except for the occasional movie in which the rape
victim’s family tries to avenge her in a painful bloody way). And the
novelization of my play, “Chase a Killer, Catch a Killer, Run, Run, Run…” would
be categorized as crime fiction.

So, I’m all over
the map, as you can see!! I’ve written screenplays and novels based on my
plays, but at heart, I’m a playwright. I’m endlessly fascinated with the way we
communicate with each other; we talk in subtext, in code. We rarely if ever say
what we mean.

Tell us about your latest book.

“Narcotic Nation” is the name. It’s the first book I published, but
not for lack of trying. I completed it fifteen years ago, and I got the
standard, “This is BRILLIANT, but we can’t touch the subject matter!!” from
every house in NYC. It’s an alternative America, in which all drugs were
legalized fifteen years ago, and while it’s resulted in a stable economy—jobs
for all who want them, help for those who need it; we’ve put the farmers back
to work as a thank you for starting this country, and cops, firemen, teachers,
and social workers et al are finally earning the salaries they so richly
deserve. However, the country is split by this decision like no other matter
since the Civil War. Half the country make up the “Realists”…people who believe
prohibition of any kind does nothing but make criminals rich and waste
literally trillions of dollars fighting something that people have proved over
many, many years they have no intention of giving up. The other half are the
“Idealists”—people who believe that making so many improvements off the taxes
that are imposed on the now-legal narcotics is nothing more than taking
advantage of America’s sick, weak, and self-indulgent.

The story follows a rock band, Deus ex
Machina, who’ve just won an Idol-type competition and are embarking on their
first world tour. The members of the band are like a small example of where the
country is. Roped into participating by his lead singer girlfriend, Raven
Lashua, bassist and aspiring politician Ashe Brecken is actually dismayed when
his band wins. Hoping to turn his instant celebrity toward a purpose, he begins
working with Stay Straight, an organization dedicated to overturning the
Legalization. What he doesn’t know is that Raven has reasons for supporting the
Freedman Bill…and is willing to secretly sabotage his life’s work to protect
it. After a public humiliation spurs his desire to overturn the Bill, Ashe
employs deadly designs to make the statement that the Bill Equals Death.
Turning to someone he’s long despised to assist him in this dangerous efforts,
this longtime band of musicians and friends are now in the midst of changing
not only the nation, but the whole world…but at what cost?

I’m not now nor have I ever been a druggie,
but looking at what the world has become, I think this is an option we need to
explore. With this one action, we could put the farmers, to whom we owe
everything, back to work; in fact, the manufacture and distribution of drugs
would create hundreds of thousands of jobs; we could regulate, and monitor, and
tax the hell of out it. We could pay policemen, firemen, social workers and
teachers what they’re worth. We could save the trillions we spent fighting
drugs, and take all that money and put it to use in this country of ours that’s
failing.

One in six American children are
“food-insecure”—and of all the BS PC terms I’ve ever heard, that one is hands
down the bull-shittiest. It means one in six children live in the most
grinding, back-breaking, terrifying poverty and they don’t know where their
next damn meal is coming from. People are not going to stop doing drugs—to quote
Raven, “People will smoke their own hair if they think it’ll take them away
from the here and now.” So, let’s stop pretending we can make this go away, and
stop spending all that money in an effort to stop something that will never go
away. Let’s get the conversation going.

What methods are you using to promote your book?

I’ve created my website, www.scarlettsavage.com, I’ve been
online and posted my work on Goodreads, I’ve contacted many people through
Writers and Bloggers; I’ve got interviews lined up with several radio stations.
There’s a wonderful site, http://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/18-top-websites-to-promote-your-book-for-free/.
My publisher is setting up some virtual book tours as well. Ted Arabian, who
has done a number of wonderful interviews online, is going to post a
“commercial” for my book on youtube; and I’m in talks with Charlie Barrett, one
of the most amazing book publicists ever, to take it to a national level.

What formats are the book available in?

Right now, contact my website; I was
extremely disappointed in my first eBook company—the paperback version of the
book had over a hundred special typos in the first half of the book. When I
asked about good ideas for promoting, they said, “Hand out flyers.” And they
got very, very upset if you mentioned any of these issues to them.

I’m currently in talks with two different
houses, but if you email me directly, I’ll sell you one for half
the asking price until I decide which one to go with.

Scarlett Savage

What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

Spend time with my kids—fifteen-year-old Daphne Juliet Ellis and
eight-year-old Jessica Juliet Savage (and no, it’s not a Shakespeare homage!
Shakespeare makes me crazy—he’s brilliant, to be sure, but every single year we
lose a handful of brilliant playwrights to history because everyone’s so busy
doing freakin’ Shakespeare…as a playwright myself, I take great umbrage!).

I live in Santa Monica, and I love to go
down to the Promenade and/or Venice boardwalk to watch the street musicians and
other artists; I’m a serious read-o-saurus, and I usually read three books a
week.

I love nothing more than sitting down with a
cup of coffee, and watching people interact. Everyone has their own little
brand of language, communication, body language. I also love traveling; London
and New Orleans are two of my favorite places in the world.

And I go to whatever theater production I
can squeeze into my schedule! I love finding small theaters off the beaten path
and see what art they’ve created. With your bigger houses, they’ve got budgets
to do all kinds of things, but in the smaller places, they’ve got nothing but
their creativity, and that is the kind of art that really gets my blood
pumping.

Who are your favourite authors?

Stephen King. I grew up in Maine,
and I went to UMaine at Orono on full scholarship to study with the same
professors he did—that was back before I realized you can’t really teach
writing! Judy Blume, absolutely. She wrote about things that no one else dared
to write about, but things that kids have questions about and parents were, at
that time, reluctant to discuss. Bullying, divorce, your first sexual
experience, getting your period for the first time, masturbation…she covered it
all. Michael Kimball, a dear friend of mine, wrote a book called “Green Girls”,
which knocked “The Stand” out of slot #1 of my list of favorite books; just
brilliant. Elizabeth Whurtzel’s books are brilliant, as well.

On my NOT favorite authors list…it absolutely KILLS me that E.L.
James’ work has gotten any recognition at all. This is porn, pure and simple,
and it teaches young girls that a) no doesn’t mean no b) if a man stalks you,
it’s a compliment c) that getting beaten is not a horrible crime, but something
you do in the name of foreplay. And her leading lady is a brain-dead ingénue
who couldn’t think her way out of a wet paper bag open at both ends. It
absolutely enrages me that someone could write garbage like that, and be
successful at it.

What advice do you have for new writers?

Write every day. Don’t copy other writers, write what you’re passionate
about. Do your research. Have more than one project going—that way if you get
blocked, you can step over to the other work, and then when you go back to
project a, you’ll find the block, often times, has cleared itself up. Get
online and contact your favorite authors—you’d be surprised how many of them
are willing to strike up online friendships, and they know the drill and give
great advice.

Read. Read everything you can get your
hands on. Read the paper, read new novels; read biographies. I LOVE reading
biographies, because they’re just as fictitious as novels, and everything
doesn’t have to all tie together and make sense in the end.

What’s your favourite quote about writing/for writers?

“I try to create sympathy for my characters…then I set the monsters
loose.” --Stephen
King

What’s the best thing
about being a writer?

Getting to explore new things all the time; having an excuse to ask
people questions about their passions, their work, their private lives. Getting
to live vicariously through your characters. Being able to study the human
condition so thoroughly on this short, short trip of life we’re allotted.

Where can people find out
more about you and your writing?

www.scarlettsavage.com.
You’ll find out everything you ever wanted to know and more…I’m also starting a
blog. And various interviews and past events you can find by googling me.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Get a Kindle!! It’s better for the environment,
and in ten years it’ll be the only way to get books. Don’t hurt the planet when
there’s a better alternative!!